The company said that the new software will help safeguard virtual server environments and provides businesses a secure path for transitioning critical assets to virtual enterprise data centres. It provides protection for virtual infrastructure including the hypervisor, operating system, network, applications, server-based virtual desktops, virtual machine and traffic between virtual machines.

According to IBM, the new software includes automatic protection features such as, Virtual Network Access Control (VNAC) to limit network access from a virtual server until security posture is confirmed; rootkit detection and prevention to increase virtual server uptime and availability; virtual infrastructure monitoring and reporting to identify vulnerabilities; and autodiscovery and virtual network segment protection to provide visibility and control of the virtual infrastructure.

IBM said that the new automatic protection features help clients to meet compliance standards and regulation requirements. It also complements already available capabilities for securing the virtual environment, such as controlling access and monitoring privilege.

Shekar Ayyar, vice president of infrastructure alliances at Vmware, said:For data centre managers needing security solutions for their virtualised environments, the combination of IBM Virtual Server Security for VMware, together with VMware vSphere, can provide better visibility and control of data down to the finest granular level, preempting threats before they materialise. The combined solution leveraging VMware VMsafe is another step forward in helping customers deploy more secure virtual environments.

The Virtual Server Security for VMware vSphere is expected to be available in December 2009.